CONCORD, N.H. -- About 20,000 liberty-minded people soon may be putting New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die" motto to a serious challenge.

Members of the Free State Project, inspired two years ago by a Yale graduate student, will announce their chosen state on Oct. 1, and New Hampshire could well be it. The group is also considering Wyoming and several other states.

If it's New Hampshire, 20,000 of them say they will move here within five years to work for smaller government, fewer laws and individual liberty.

Project members are college students and retirees and small business owners. Not all are Libertarians, though their principles are similar. They describe themselves as nonviolent, freedom-loving people. And they call their project the biggest experiment in democracy since the Revolutionary War.

Graduate student Jason Sorens came up with the idea in an essay written in July 2001. He posted it online, and was immediately flooded with e-mails from people ready to put it into action. With the Web site (www.freestateproject.org) as a forum, the movement began.

A year ago, members narrowed the choices to 10 states based on their small populations, libertarian tendencies, strong economies and other criteria.

New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont are on the list, as are South and North Dakota, Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. But New Hampshire and Wyoming are generally seen as the leaders.

New Hampshire is tops for its lack of dependence on federal dollars, projected job growth, low crime rate and small government. It also gets high marks for its lack of a general sales or income tax, the relatively weak powers of its governor and, of course, the "Live Free or Die" motto coined by Revolutionary War hero John Stark.

There's also the New Hampshire Constitution, which both guarantees the right to revolt and does not prohibit secession. Project members say secession is not their goal, but the provision could be a useful bargaining chip.

Strikes against New Hampshire include its lack of support for Libertarian presidential candidates and its relatively expensive political campaigns.

The campaign to choose a state is being waged mainly on the Internet. But an "Escape to New Hampshire" picnic in June attracted more than 200 people from 22 states and Canada, including Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Nolan.

And James Maynard of Keene, one of 150 project members who already live in New Hampshire, has been recruiting in Massachusetts.

"With the attitude of everyone in Massachusetts, that freedom is just to their north, that would be a great source," said Maynard, 30.

Voting began last month as membership reached 5,000.

Results of the balloting, which ends Sept. 22, are a closely guarded secret. A contractor is doing the counting, and board members say even they have no idea what the early returns show.

Though the premise of the project is that 20,000 committed individuals could be a genuine force in a small state, members bristle at the suggestion they want to "take over" a state.

"New Hampshire gets 20,000 new residents annually. So 20,000 people is not like locusts," said Vice President Elizabeth McKinstry, who lives in Michigan. "And in no state that's on our list will 20,000 people be enough to come in to 'take over.'"

Even if it were, members say that is not what the project is about.

Henry McElroy, a freshman state representative from Nashua, says the biggest change would be getting people involved in government.

"You should be reading, you should be studying, you should be doing a better job of understanding your place in society," said McElroy, a Republican. "And that is not to be a couch potato that maybe votes every four years."

However, some members say they will work to eliminate laws against "victimless behaviors" such as marijuana use for medical purposes, prostitution and gambling.

That's partly why New Hampshire State Democratic Chairwoman Kathy Sullivan considers the project "sort of a very fringe group that can best be described as anarchists."

Sullivan was appalled when Republican Gov. Craig Benson told free-staters this summer, "Come on up, we'd love to have you."

"Is Craig Benson for legalized prostitution? He's for legalizing drugs? Is he for eliminating public schools?" she asked.

Don't confuse being a libertarian with being a Libertarian. Radical localists, or rightwing libertarians, understand the importance of local control and local soveriegnty even if left-libertarians don't quite get it.

8
posted on 09/08/2003 11:14:22 AM PDT
by JohnGalt
(Vichycons-- Supporting Endless War Abroad; Appeasing the Welfare State at Home, Since 2001)

1) Please add me to your FSP list. Even though I still have my doubts about the project, I'm interested in how it turns out.

You're added, and welcome to the list.

2) Pick New Hampshire. Wyoming's nicer, but NH can be defended easier and you're on the Canadian border.

NH was my third pick [the voting/count procedures are detailed *here*.] after Wyoming and Montana. Not only is Montana also on the Canadian border, but the Canadians living there are of a more western outlook [not surprisingly!] than their eastern brethern nearer New Hampsterland. But NH has a good many other things going for it as well, though the atrtractiveness of having so many states with desirable features clustered together in the west offers possibilities for future FSP growth.

As of 8-31-2003: 5,372 pledged FSP *Porcupine* members....

9
posted on 09/08/2003 11:23:57 AM PDT
by archy
(Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)

Can't they find a Sunbelt state to set up shop in? I can't hack the cold!

Having resided in Memphis for the last half-dozen years, I sympathize with you. My skis have mostly gathered dust and rust in my storage shed over those past few years though, and I'm looking forward to getting some use out of them again. I expect there'll be less of a problem with the kudzu in the chosen Free State, too. That too will be an improvement.

Those nice warm comfy places are where many of the drones and parasites have settled in their pismire warrens. I can handle some occasional harsh weather to be rid of most of them.

-archy-/-

13
posted on 09/08/2003 11:29:39 AM PDT
by archy
(Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)

New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont are on the list, as are South and North Dakota, Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Can't we have a Free State someplace warm? What about a Free State Project in the Virgin Islands?

There's an independence movement in Hawaii, though I don't give their chances of success much hope. It's a nice locale for such thoughts, though, and I have a former Navy lady pal working as a cop there. Nice spot to visit, but I don't think the FSP project's political efforts would work at all well there.

-archy-/-

14
posted on 09/08/2003 11:32:41 AM PDT
by archy
(Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)

The difference between Wyoming and Montana is daylight and dark. Wyoming is conservative to the core, the democratic governor elected there had to almost promise every resident a free firearm to get elected.

Montana for the most part is a liberal's, liberal state. Max Bacus, leftist unions at every level, (goes back to the old days when copper mines were all unionized) including check out clerks at the grocery stores. The Sierra club and the Greens are everywhere influencing policy and politics. Jane and Ted, Hollywood types, Californians and easterners with scads of cash first said they loved the freedom and open spaces, now they want to change it to be that from which they ran.

I speak from experience, having lived many years in Cody Wyoming just south of the Montana border. had to work in Montana a couple of times and we did most of our shopping in Billings for hard to find and big ticket items unavailable without driving 240 miles to Casper versus less than a 100 to Billings.

17
posted on 09/08/2003 11:52:15 AM PDT
by Ursus arctos horribilis
("It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" Emiliano Zapata 1879-1919)

I'm in Jersey, and August is my favorite month. every few years, we get a 100+ degree(+99% humidity) spell and I'm the only one I know who likes to take 10-20 mile bike rides. Most people hide in the air conditioning 24/7. The only time in the winter I don't mind going out is when the fish are biting. If it's 20 degs. on land, you go about 10 miles out to sea and it usually is at least in the low 40's since the water holds the 'heat'. The biggest problem is the bow icing up on the run out from the waves(avg. 3-4') crashing over it. ;-)

How about the "john'" ie "whoremonger's" wife and children, just for starters?

Not all johns are married. Anyway, adultery ruins marriages, want to outlaw that too?

How about society as a whole for another?

Yes unregulated prostitution does harm society. The prostitutes could be carrying STDs which are spread by having sex with customers. The way to decrease the risk of STDs is to regulate prostitution, not outlaw it.

SOCIETY.... spread of STDs... sex as a "commodity" rather than a loving act... females seen as "objects"... men not being able to deal with real women and the obligations that go along with sex... women involved having low self-esteem... and that's just for openers...

Regulate it then. Make the prostitutes come in for STD tests every week.

sex as a "commodity" rather than a loving act... females seen as "objects"... men not being able to deal with real women and the obligations that go along with sex... women involved having low self-esteem... and that's just for openers...

Sound like individual problems to me. It's not the government's job to stop individuals from making foolish decisions.

It's not the government's job to stop individuals from making foolish decisions.

It is the job of government to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..." When an individual's "foolish decisions" threaten justice, domestic tranquility, the common defense, the general welfare, or the blessings of liberty, then it is the government's duty to stop that foolish individual.

Now, as for the FSP, I wish it all the best of luck in its success. If all the anarchists are in one place, it'll be easier for the rest of us to get some work done.

Chemist_Geek said: It is the job of government to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."

Ms Sullivan is probably worried that legalizations will be cutting in on her turf...

If the FSP movement does pick NH, not only is her *turf* threatened, but her party hack job as well, particularly if the Democrats there are driven into the status of being the Granite State's third-largest political party. And if that condition begins there, it could grow to relegate Democrats in other states to the same status as well.

She has good cause to be concerned.

-archy-/-

44
posted on 09/09/2003 8:20:46 AM PDT
by archy
(Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)

Now, as for the FSP, I wish it all the best of luck in its success. If all the anarchists are in one place, it'll be easier for the rest of us to get some work done.

And we welcome and appreciate your good wishes for our efforts. While I expect we'll neither get *all* the anarchists in one place nor figure that they're any sort of sizable proportion of our numbers, I hope we do include at least a few sufficiently suspicious of governmental authority wielding its axe over the heads of those it would dominate to keep our governmental efrforts limited to the role of that government that governs best by doing so to the minimal extent necessary.

I seem to recall a couple of Robert A. Heinlein's characters who described themselves as *rational anarchists,* though I suspect the grand old man hisself would not have as easily worn that tag- he had himself been a political party's candidate, after all. But I'd like to think his fictional creations are along with us in spirit, and if he were still on this world, I bet he'd be watching the proceedings with great interest, even if not as a participant.

-archy-/-

45
posted on 09/09/2003 8:28:20 AM PDT
by archy
(Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)

Like others here, I'm from FL and warm blooded. I dig the FSP, but I'm kind of waiting for Castro to keel over and invade Cuba with the pissed off group of liberty lovers in Miami.

As a 10-year-old kid and son of a Caltex/Texaco refinery process engineer, my parents thought it would be a swell *learning experience* if I were to accompany him to his new three-year assignment at the Caltex Santa Clara refinery. Neither his position nor the Batista government lasted quite that long, and I did get quite an education, indeed, including firsthand observations of Marine small-unit tactics, my first experience of being shot toward if not quite directly at as the intended recipient, my first brush with the sudden death of another from gunfire, and a lexicon of several Cubano Spanish-language phrases not generrally taught in school courses.

We got shipped off to Miami before Fidel's New Year's Day victory parades, so I have some memories of that town that are not all that pleasant; I always liked Ft Lauderdale and Gainesville better in the south, Jax up north.

Neither do I make it a habit of celebrating the death of another; but when Fidel goes, I'll be breaking out the rum and cigars, if only figuratively, and putting my old Celia Cruz tapes on to dance to. Azucar!

And if I can make the trip from the Free State to Calle Ocho and thence to a Havana that's at least a little more free than previously, that too would be a happy time. There'll be at least as much work for the Cubanos who have to dismantle the machinery of Fidel's human-grinding regime as for the porcupines in our new home, but I hope we can offer at least some example of methodology and perhaps some other more real support to them in their efforts; may they go with God.

-archy-/-

47
posted on 09/09/2003 8:49:45 AM PDT
by archy
(Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)

New Hampshire is certainly on my list of acceptable states! I have only been to New Hampshire twice, but I sure liked what I saw.

And, "Live FRee or Die" is as good a state motto as there is! Well, I'll admit it took a long look for me to come around to that point of view, in part because some of the machinations of the FSP *Hampster proponents* have been awfully heavyhanded and shrill.

But ya know what? It wasn't so much the ones already in the Granite State that were the problem, and most other non-FSP residents I've met in the last year seemed to welcome the effort, if sometimes offering honest doubts about the liklihood of real success, often couched in descriptions of a snowball's chance in Hell.

So yeah, though I still favour Wyoming or Montana, I bet we can make a go of it in NH. And if I see you there, that'll work for me.

But it would take me a little longer to arrange my relocation there. I could head West virtually immediately....

-archy-/-

49
posted on 09/09/2003 8:59:45 AM PDT
by archy
(Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)

Mine goes out tomorrow. I had to run down and pick up my passport from my safe deposit box for my *voters registration* verification. No rush so long as the Post Office doesn't mess things up, but do get yours out this week.

-archy-/-

50
posted on 09/09/2003 9:03:58 AM PDT
by archy
(Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.